IntroductionWe’ve
all sat and drooled over the pages of the latest industry mag at the
sights and specifications of some master designer’s latest Herculean,
not to mention expensive, efforts in speaker design. And why shouldn’t
we? Often, these products represent what is the pinnacle of loudspeaker
design, and while no trip to Everest is free, there are other mountains
worth climbing, which are rewarding in their own right. Enter companies
like Radiient and their new line, or should I say line-up, of speakers,
starting with the Elara compact five-speaker system.

Founded by David Buuck, formerly of DVDO, and Jano
Banks, the co-creator of HDMI, Radiient is out to prove that great
sound and quality craftsmanship don’t necessarily have to come at a
steep price. In fact, they’re out to change the way you look at, listen
to and buy speakers altogether. This is why you’ll only find their
products sold direct through their website, where they can offer
potential customers the chance to become more educated about music and
movie reproduction, as well as save a few bucks on purchases by
eliminating the middle man. Throw in a 30-day money back guarantee, and
making a purchase from Radiient may just be the easiest transaction in
all of consumer electronics, period. At least, that’s Radiient’s goal
and, with the introduction of several different speaker packages, they
seem poised to prove it.

Retailing for a very obtainable $499.00 and available exclusively
online, the Elara system is essentially a subwoofer/satellite combo,
minus the subwoofer. Now, the Elara system isn’t one of those micro
satellite/subwoofer combos you’re probably used to seeing in this price
range. On the contrary, the Elara system is essentially four rather
large bookshelf speakers mated with a matching center channel. While a
subwoofer is recommended, and Radiient does recommended that you use
one, in smaller rooms or for those of you who don’t like to rock the
Kasbah, you may be okay with just the five speakers. But I’m getting
ahead of myself.

The
main speakers in the Elara system have an attractive two-way design
with a light maple finish and piano black faceplate that contains a
single five-and-a-half-inch coaxial carbon fiber midbass driver/tweeter
above a two-and-a-half-inch forward-firing port. The piano black
faceplate, while extremely attractive, goes largely unseen due to the
speaker’s fabric grille. Atop the main speaker enclosure rests a
one-inch metallized silk dome tweeter with a B&W-like design.
Another borrowed design element is the Elara’s tapering cabinet design
which, when the speaker is viewed from above, gives it a sort of V
shape. All in all, the main Elara speakers measure in at 14 inches high
by 13-and-three-quarters inches wide by 11-and-three-quarters inches
deep, weighing in at a respectable 17 pounds apiece. They are
bi-wireable via two sets of gold-plated binding posts found on the
speaker’s slender rear edge. The Elara mains have a reported frequency
response of 50Hz-35kHz, with a sensitivity of 86dB into a rather benign
eight-ohm load.

Moving
on to the Elara center channel, I was greeted with more of the same.
The styling is almost identical to the mains, with the exception of the
top-mounted tweeter, which the center does not have. It’s a two-way
design with matching four-and-a-half-inch carbon-fiber midbass drivers,
mated with a two-inch silk dome tweeter mounted between the dual
midbass drivers. The cabinet has the same fit and finish as the rest of
the line, but doesn’t taper as much in the rear as the mains do. The
overall dimensions are a little over seven-and-a-half inches tall by
17-and-three-quarters inches wide and 10-and-one-quarter inches deep.
The Elara center tips the scales at 16 pounds and has a reported
frequency response of 60Hz-20kHz into an eight-ohm load, with a
sensitivity of 90dB. Unlike the Elara mains, the center channel is not
bi-wireable. However, it does feature the same gold-plated five-way
binding posts found in the rest of the Elara line.

Lastly,
there are the surround speakers. The Elara surrounds are not
traditional surrounds, in the sense that they are not bi-polar or
wall-mountable. In fact, you could use the surround speakers as front
speakers if you were so inclined. However, for the sake of this review,
I used them solely as surround speakers, albeit directional ones. They
are visually identical to the rest of the Elara line and look just like
the mains, minus the top-mounted tweeter. The surrounds feature a
single five-and-a-half inch carbon fiber coaxial tweeter/midbass driver
mounted above the two-and-a-half inch forward-firing port. The one-inch
silk dome tweeter rests in the center of the midbass driver, hence the
coaxial configuration. They measure in at little over 14 inches high by
eight-and-three-quarters inches wide and 12-and-a-half inches deep.
They tip the scales at a respectable 16 pounds.

The
Elara rears feature the same V-shaped cabinet as the mains and are
bi-wireable. Just like the center channel, the Elara rears have the
same reported frequency response of 60Hz-20kHz into the same eight-ohm
load.

Set-up
I went ahead and set up the Elara system in my newly-completed
reference room. I placed the main speakers atop a pair of 24-inch Omni
Mount speaker stands approximately three feet from the front wall and
two-and-a-half feet away from the sidewalls. I then placed the center
channel on top of an 18-inch Omni Mount stand and placed it square in
the middle of the room three feet out from the front wall. The rears
were placed on 36-inch Omni Mount stands and rested about a foot out
from the sidewalls, in line with the main listening position. All five
speakers were connected to a Parasound Halo A51 multi-channel amplifier
(review forthcoming), with the processing falling to the matching
Parasound Halo C1 controller (review forthcoming). I split the source
duties between my Toshiba HD XA-1 HD DVD player and trusty Oppo
up-sampling DVD player. The video duties fell into the capable hands of
my Panasonic AE-900U LCD projector. All components and speakers were
connected with Monster M Series cables, with all power filtering being
handled by my reference Monster Power HTPS 7000 MKII.

If the Elaras were ever going to get a fair shake, it was going to be
in this room. Hell, the speaker cables alone cost more then the speaker
system’s asking price. I decided to utilize my current reference JBL L
series subwoofer to round out the Elara’s low end. I understand the JBL
L series sub might be a bit of overkill for a system like the Elara.
However, it was already present in my room and calibrated, so I decided
to throw caution to the wind and go for it.

Music and Movies
I
kicked things off with an old pop favorite, Savage Garden’s self-titled
debut (Columbia). On the opening track, “Moon and Back,” the beginning
rumble was a bit light in the lower regions before I turned on the sub,
which rounded things out nicely. Without the sub, the main speaker’s
drivers began to crackle and break up, even at moderate volumes. This
didn’t shock me. With my experiment over, I left the sub on for the
duration of the review and continued listening. From Darren’s first
breath and subsequent vocals, the Elara mains dished out one heck of a
center image. It was rock solid and floated effortlessly in the space
between the speakers. Several guests in my house thought for sure the
center channel was playing. It wasn’t. Beyond their placement, Darren’s
vocals were forward and stood out from the rest of the musical
elements, which made the entire track a bit more energetic in feeling.
Next, I focused my attention to the Elara’s top end. The cymbals were
clear and had a fair amount of decay and air. However, they always
sounded a bit reproduced, as opposed to tricking me into thinking they
were the real thing. This wasn’t a huge surprise, given the Elara’s
price bracket. When the track really gets going I found the Elara mains
had a bit of a problem keeping pace. The guitars began to overtake the
space, which caused the vocals to lose a bit of their clarity. Overall,
the image became a bit cloudy and lost a little bit of the magic that I
experienced earlier in the track. The treble too became a bit recessed
and soft, which seemed to take a bit of detail out of the overall
presentation. In terms of the soundstage, I found the Elara’s
presentation to be very wide but not very deep, which caused the sound
to abruptly stop at my room’s front wall.

Moving on to
my favorite track, “I Want You,” I decided to go for the gusto and
really crank the volume. At above-average yet not earth-shattering
levels, Darren’s vocals again were front and center. However, at the
slightly higher volume, the vocals were noticeably colored by the
Elaras’ cabinet, which gave the overall presentation a bit of a hollow,
wooden sound. Also, at higher volumes, bits of the sonic landscape,
mainly the lower registers, seemed to bunch around the speakers
themselves, breaking away from the rest of the musical elements ever so
slightly. I did like the Elaras’ presentation of the drum solo. While
my JBL sub picked up a lot of the slack, the Elara mains proved to be
up to the task when it came to adding snap and punch to the depth of
drum kit.

Next,
I swapped out Savage Garden for Sarah McLachlan’s album entitled
Remixed (Nettwerk). During the song “Fear,” the Elaras dished up an
amazing performance, both sonically and spatially, of the track’s
opening synthesizer. The Elaras didn’t rob the song of its rather
driving rhythm and added a bit of extra zing and bounce, which made for
an engaging performance, if not the most accurate one. I felt rather
surrounded, given that I was only listening to two speakers – two
bookshelf speakers, at that. Moving on to the track “Sweet Surrender,”
the Elaras’ treble was near spot-on, so long as I kept the volume
within reason. Beyond moderate volumes, the treble showed signs of
strain and was prone to fizzle. However, this may have had more to do
with the speaker’s build than the tweeter’s lack of ability, but more
on that later. The cymbals maintained an appropriate balance of air and
sparkle without sounding overly metallic or fake. McLachlan’s vocals
stood out from the rest of the musical elements which, coupled with the
Elaras’ dynamic capabilities, made for a much more in-your-face
presentation; given the style of music, I found it to be a welcome
interpretation. Lastly, I cued up the track “I Love You” and was
greeted with probably the best performance the Elaras had dished out
yet. Immediately, the size of the soundstage, width-wise, was downright
shocking. However, there was a clear sonic gap between the phantom
center and the left and right speakers. I played with the Elaras’
toe-in but wasn’t able to create a truly seamless arc of sound between
the left and right channels and the center image. The bass was very
tight, very controlled and punchy. The Elaras’ dynamic capabilities
were very good and their ability to resolve all but the minutest
details made for a truly engrossing musical experience.

Happy
with my findings in stereo, I branched out to the DualDisc recording of
Snow Patrol’s debut album, Final Straw (A&M Records). I skipped to
the track “Chocolate” and found the Elaras much more suited for
multi-channel fare, given their almost identical design across all five
speakers. The vocals gained a bit more weight and warmth when compared
to traditional two-channel music. Also, the treble took on a much more
three-dimensional quality, gaining a bit more air and palpability with
less overall grain and glare at higher volumes. However, due to the
lack of an outboard tweeter, the center channel didn’t quite have the
same refinement in the top end as the mains did. Switching to the track
“Run,” the vocals were rich, dark and appropriately moody. The subtle
xylophone track was extremely delicate and nimble. Guitars were
beautifully reproduced though all five speakers, although at extreme
volumes, they tended to retreat within the speakers themselves,
breaking away from the rest of the musical spectrum. At the same
volumes, the lower midrange did get the drivers to rattle a bit within
the cabinet. I ended with the track “Somewhere the Clock is Ticking”
and noticed that the bass guitars had tremendous detail and snap.
However, there was a bit of a gap between my subwoofer’s bass and the
Elaras’ lower extension that made them just a little light in their
footing. Dynamically, all five speakers proved up to the task and there
was less flattening spatially with the DualDisc’s increased resolution.
As always, the Elaras’ vocal reproduction was superb, as was their
ability to recreate the track’s more atmospheric elements.

I
quickly shifted my focus to movies and cued up the Spielberg sci-fi hit
“Minority Report” (DreamWorks), starring Tom Cruise. I was anxious to
see if the smallish Elara system would prove up to the task when
presented with my Panasonic AE-900U’s (review forthcoming)
larger-than-life projected image. During the film’s opening action
sequence, where Cruise and his men are racing against the clock to
prevent a murder from actually taking place, the Elara system didn’t
rob me of any enjoyment. Starting with the symphonic score that plays
throughout the initial investigation, the Elaras maintained the proper
balance between the orchestral elements and the film’s dialogue. The
resolving power of the various elements, both natural and
technological, made for a truly three-dimensional sonic landscape to go
along with the projector’s rich image. When Cruise’s team finally
arrived at the home of the would-be killer, their grand entrance
through the house’s skylights was awe-inspiring. The Elaras’ treble was
extremely detailed and capable of tracking the countless shards of
raining glass and debris as they fell around the actors. Likewise, the
lower midrange and bass were very taut and held their own when
presented with the film’s many flying crafts and futuristic cars.
During the scene involving Cruise’s character and the Pre-Crime
detectives on jet packs, the Elara system was poised with a daunting
task. Amidst the chaos and action, the dialogue remained focused and
intelligible. Likewise, the sequence’s higher frequencies were free of
harshness and glare. The lower midrange and subsequent bass tracks
(minus the subwoofer) were a little light in the pants and just a touch
flat dynamically. The surround sound performance was rather good and
encircled me realistically with true three dimensional quality.
Overall, the Elara system was engaging and enjoyable in its own right.
Sure, I’ve heard better and more refined, but at the sub-five hundred
dollar level, I was happy and a little surprised with what the Elaras
were capable of.

I watched a barrage of films and
listened to countless music CDs and found that the Elaras were nothing
if not consistent. They won’t go low, and their top end isn’t the best,
but what they do attempt to do, they do very well. They’re not jacks of
all trades and if you throw them something they don’t like, for
example, complex passages at above average or extreme volumes, they
will simply back down. However, at reasonable volumes with all but the
most demanding movies and music, these babies are capable of much more
than I think their price tag would lead you to believe. Place them in a
smaller room, like a second living room or bedroom, and you might very
well achieve the sonic bliss you’ve been searching without breaking the
bank.

The Downside
First
and foremost, the Elara system is not a true 5.1-channel system. If you
want any sort of real bass, you’re going to have to invest in a decent
subwoofer. While the price of the Elara system may prove enticing, keep
in mind that you will have to budget more for a sub and, while my JBL L
series subwoofer proved to be a good match, there are other subs out
there that will work just as well and fit within the realm of the
Elara’s price bracket. My recommendation would be to pair the Elaras
with a subwoofer from the likes of Outlaw or Definitive Technology.
There are many options out there when it comes to subwoofers and I
encourage you to look at them all before making your final decision.

Next, the Elaras are going to require stands of some sort. Five of ‘em.
Sure, you could place them in a cabinet or on a low table or credenza.
However, I found their off-axis response, especially in the treble, to
be a bit more limited than some when placed at any but the appropriate
heights. Experimentation is the name of the game. However, with the
extra money in your budget, you can afford to take your time doing some
research when buying the proper stands.

Lastly, there is the issue of the Elaras’ build quality. While
extremely stylish, I found their construction to be the one of the
largest causes of their sonic shortcomings. For starters, and after
several discussions with the folks over at Radiient, I found the
speakers’ binding posts to be largely responsible for the tweeter’s
glare and the mid-bass driver’s rattle. The binding posts, while nicely
constructed, were prone to loosening due to vibrations within the
cabinet itself, which would result in lessened performance sonically.
Granted, it was always an easy solve, but it was just a bit of a
nuisance to have to continually check the grips on the binding posts
every couple of days. Speaking of cabinet vibrations, I found that they
could cause the speakers’ more decorative elements, mainly the shiny
black pad on either side of the main’s outboard tweeter, to come loose
and/or fall off altogether. I think if the cabinet’s internal bracing
were given a once-over, it would alleviate a great many problems with
the system itself and possibly catapult the Elara system from being
merely good, given its cost, to being something truly great.

Conclusion
$499 for an almost complete 5.1 speaker system seems almost too good to
be true. Well, yes and no. There’s no denying that the Elara system has
many strong points. Its lively sonic character and relatively easygoing
sound, regardless of source material, is sure to attract a slew of
potential buyers. Throw in a décor-friendly look and relatively small
stature and it will no doubt find its way into homes the world over.
However, its lack of sure-footed bass and absolute sonic capabilities
across the entire spectrum when played back at true reference levels
may keep die-hard enthusiasts at bay. I’ve heard great speakers and
I’ve heard bad speakers. While I would classify the Elaras as somewhere
in between, they were nothing if not enjoyable, and that is what it’s
all about. Trust your ears, do your homework and maybe, when the dust
settles, you’ll find yourself listening to the Elara speaker system in
your own home.